Where have I been you ask? It’s been 5 days since my last post and all, well, truth be told I had a kidney stone last week and I wasn’t much good for anything except watching movies I’d seen dozens of times and sleeping 15 hours a day. On Saturday I started feeling better and ventured out in the TI for an inaugural run into Berkeley to run some errands and lets just say it was interesting.

The list of – shall we say – inadequacies was long but I am feeling better so I’ll put it out here: tired tires wobbly, roofing tar on floor slippery in heat, dynamo light erratic but not as erratic as the idle, induction noise intense, carbs out of sync causing no end of smells, noises and visible black smoke, brake pedal getting soft, bouncy rear end – dead shocks?, and lots more that are nothing more than trivialities compared to the above. Time to get to work!

Starting at the end as usual. The last thing I did before driving off and heading for the grocery store this evening – stealing air cleaners off the GTV and mounting them on the TI. Very nice if I do say so.

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I guess I was closer than I thought. The list seemed daunting: set alignment, hook up blow by canister to breather, dip stick breather, intake manifold port and plumb it out the back, investigate a flickering dynamo light, hard mount the seats which required removal of no longer useable VW/Audi seat belt tension spools, double checking a few bolts for tightness and installing the hood. Here’s how it went.

I think it might look better in this picture than it is. Hood fits pretty good. I need to fashion a prop for it since I don’t think the stock prop will fit. If I paint it I think it will stay this color.

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Saturday morning I decided it was time to get back on the TI after a week of being tired after work and just going home and reading instead of going to the shop.  The steering box had been in for a week but I hadn’t hooked everything up and put the dash back together, so my path was clear before me.  The car had been on jack stands for 3 weeks and I was eager to get it back on four wheels so I started under the car.  I hooked up the tie rod ends, made some small adjustments to the alignment, bolted the wheel on and took it off the jack stands. 

Dash is at last firmly mounted and bolted together.  Steering wheel now has a woodruff key.  Headlight stalk has an end on it so it can be turned  without difficulty.  Column cowl is on straight and, best of all, the ignition key is mounted to a bracket that is screwed to the dash.  I need to get some cheap stereo to fill that hole.  Anyone have anything they want to donate?

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Lots of fun was had the last few days and below is the result. This is after a quick spin around our cul-de-sac. Still need to check valve clearances etc but it sounds good. Water pump quieted down too.

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